The Brothers Karamazov Analysis

The works of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky can be described as exercises in “soul-searching.” Both have a habit of exhibiting sympathy for their characters, providing little vignettes of life and lifelike figures and displaying the inner beauty and humanity in them. They advocate love for and brotherhood with one’s fellow man. This is a distinct contrast to the attitudes of many other Russians during the period in which the authors wrote, specifically the “logical” intelligentsia, many of whom were atheists, even nihilists. In both Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, an overdependence on logical reasoning is presented as a negative trait that ultimately leads to a lack of love for man, unhappiness, failure, …show more content…
Dmitri, Grushenka, and Alyosha’s schoolboy friends are especially affected. Even the Fyodor Karamazov -- an inveterate sensualist all his life and something of a miser-- is somewhat improved by contact with his son, donating some money to the monastery. Smerdyakov, the true athiest of the novel who wholeheartedly believes “everything is permitted” -- unlike Ivan, the creator of the phase who is horrified by Smerdyakov’s use of it to justify his actions -- is arguably the only character unaffected and completely unimproved. He is intelligent and logical, and has too much evil in him to be redeemed. Even after confessing to Ivan -- done not in search of redemption, as the confessions made by Dmitri to to prosecutors, but to stroke his pride by forcing Ivan to recognise his intellect -- he feels no shame or any other form of moral anguish, casually ordering for lemonade as Ivan trembles. He accuses Ivan of the murder, saying Ivan taught him that “everything is permitted,” allowing his action. However, his evil nature and rationalistic rejection of faith has always been present. When he is first described by Dostoevsky in detail, it is explained